Customer satisfaction : courtesy ensures everlasting emotions

I happen to be very often on business trips to meet clients. One recurrent problem when you travel alone is to find a place for dinner where you’ll feel welcome although you are alone.
I was in Amsterdam for a few days (and nights) and had that problem once again. I discovered a small Indonesian restaurant a few meters away from the restaurant.
I felt so welcome at restaurant Sama Sebo that I decided to come back 3 days in a row.
I analyzed my customer experience and understood that customer satisfaction was created by 3 key aspects :

1. Make it easy for the customer to adapt to the situation
   It’s not easy to go for dinner or lunch when you are alone. At least in my case I feel very uncomfortable and want to eat and go away as quickly as possible. The Saba Samo had a bar where I was seated like without any danger of being judged.
2. Make the customer feel welcome
   I was attending a fair and on my second visit I was still wearing my badge. The waiter recognized me from the previous day, read my name from my badge and personalized my experience by calling me by my first name. I felt very comfortable. Not only did I know the place already but the waiter made it easier for me to be part of it.
3. Make the customer feel special
   On my third visit the waiter directly called me by my name, seated me, told my story and introduced me to a couple of loyal customers. He took my phone away and I had a wonderful evening of discussing with this retired couple with whom we shared memories of places we both had visited.

Conclusion 

In the restaurant there was one little sign above the bar which read (in Dutch) “Hoffelijkheid is een kosteloze investering met het hoogste rendement“. Once translated it gives approximately : “courtesy is an investment that costs nothing and has the highest return”. The least I can say is that this waiter had perfectly understood what customer satisfaction was made of and that it generates positive word-of-mouth. This being said, the restaurant was full every single day of the week (most of the customers were locals) which tells much about how customer satisfaction impacts the profitability of a business.

Image : shutterstock

By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab Pierre-Nicolas est Docteur en Marketing et dirige l'agence d'études de marché IntoTheMinds. Ses domaines de prédilection sont le BigData l'e-commerce, le commerce de proximité, l'HoReCa et la logistique. Il est également chercheur en marketing à l'Université Libre de Bruxelles et sert de coach et formateur à plusieurs organisations et institutions publiques. Il peut être contacté par email, Linkedin ou par téléphone (+32 486 42 79 42)